Social Media Privacy Issues

Social media privacy is an important issue, one that will remain relevant as social media platforms continue to grow and privacy settings lack transparency.  Most individuals fall into one of three general categories: those that give social media privacy no thought and post without much concern; those that give it some thought but proceed with caution; and those that give it a lot of thought and proceed with great care.  As with all things, there are gradations to the above social media privacy spectrum.  Regardless, there comes a point in time where you need to make a decision to join the social media rank, or not, and if so, to what extent.

Social media related privacy risks are tremendous.  Given that we are in the infancy of social media, it will be a matter of time before the real implications are fully understood.  “Some of Facebook's research on user behavior found that 71% of people drafted at least one post that they never posted” (Jayson, 2014).  The mere fact that there is data out there mining what we don’t post is enlightening – and a bit alarming.   Additionally, I am even more concerned for children growing up in an age where social media is the norm and the long term implications are unknown. 

I take a conservative approach in my privacy settings in all social media platforms I use.  It is important to read privacy statements before signing up for a social media account but most don’t take the time to read the fine print.  When you do, it can be very enlightening.  “For instance, when Facebook recently announced changes to its default privacy settings on sharing with friends, it revealed that it could access smartphone mics to capture and analyze the songs, TV shows, and other things users heard” (Baskin, 2014).  This is an important detail, yet it is largely unknown to the average Facebook user.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse suggests that an individual “become familiar with the privacy settings available on any social network you use.”  Most social media sites do not make it easy to read their privacy statements nor is it always easy to find the privacy statement.  “This is muddled communicating, at best, and it’s hard not to think that it’s purposeful, since  the profitability of these services depends on users remaining unaware of the extent to which their privacy is (or will be) exploited” (Baskin, 2014).

The growing fear factor has made me very discerning about which social media platforms I use and what content I post.  “Your every online move leaves cyber footprints that are rapidly becoming fodder for research without you ever realizing it” (Jayson, 2014).  I had privacy concerns while signing up for required social media sites for COMI 610.  Some have panned out, others were unnecessary, but mostly the bigger privacy issues remain uncertain.  What I now know to be true is that “these new media giants are recording, dissecting, and distributing a running log of our lives” (Schaefer, 2012).

Check out this Jack Vale social media experiment video showing just how easy it is to gather information about individuals (and freak them out in the process):

 

 

References

 

Baskin, J. (2014, May 28). Privacy Issues Could Threaten The Future Of Commercial Social Media. Retrieved February 25, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2014/05/28/privacy-issues-could-threaten-the-future-of-commercial-social-media/

Jayson, S. (2014, March 12). Social media research raises privacy and ethics issues. Retrieved February 25, 2015, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/08/data-online-behavior-research/5781447/

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. (2015, February 1). Fact Sheet 35: Social Networking Privacy: How to be Safe, Secure and Social. Retrieved February 25, 2015, from https://www.privacyrights.org/social-networking-privacy-how-be-safe-secure-and-social

Schaefer, M. (2012). Controversy and Turmoil.  In Return On Influence (1st ed., p. 128). McGraw-Hill.

 

Vale, J. (2013, November 18). Social Media Experiment. Retrieved February 25, 215, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P_0s1TYpJU